The Five Times Someone Felt Left Out
by aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: "The Five Times Someone Felt Left Out, and How They Were All Rectified with Kisses."  They never leave a demigod  or Oracle of Delphi  behind.  Percy/Annabeth/Nico/Rachel.  -  Five parts.
1. 001: Nico, Percy, and Annabeth

**Author**: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
**Fandom**: _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_, Rick Riordan  
**Story Title**: "The Five Times Someone Felt Left Out (And How They Were All Rectified with Kisses)"  
**Character/Relationships**: Percy/Annabeth/Nico, Percy/Nico/Rachel, Nico/Rachel/Annabeth, Rachel/Annabeth/Percy, Percy/Nico/Annabeth/Rachel  
**Rating**: M  
**Warnings**: Some mild sexual content.  
**Wordcount**: 3,335/~15,000... this one ran away from me.  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own anything. All characters, settings, and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.  
**Notes**: Um, okay, so this one is turning out way lengthier than I intended, and is taking way longer _to write_ than I'd intended, so I'm going to break ~code~ and post it as a five-part fic instead of a superlong one-shot. Hopefully that will also motivate me to keep working on it until it's all finished instead of getting discouraged by how much more involved it's become and losing steam. So, yeah, um, keep checking back?

**The Five Times Someone Felt Left Out (And How They Were All Rectified with Kisses)**

**001. Nico/Annabeth/Percy**  
So for the first time in quite a while in Nico di Angelo's life, everything was pretty stellar, actually. He'd finally caught up to his own grade and didn't feel stupid at school _all_ the time anymore (even though dyslexia still sucked and he wanted to castrate everyone who thought ADD equaled a viral disease); he got to live in a sweet-ass apartment, and not, you know, in a cursed hotel or _the Underworld_, and it was nice to go home at the end of each day and have it be a home and not the dormitory of some crappy military school or a bone palace where he might get turned into a geranium; his cabin at Camp Half-Blood made him _way_ happier than he'd ever let Chiron or Mr. D know, just to save face; and he had the best roommate in the entire world.

The only thing that sucked was that Nico was a little bit in love. Just a little bit.

It was okay, though, as long as Annabeth never found out. She'd never let him stay if she knew.

So, consequently, another thing that kind of rocked was that Nico got to slut around a lot with the mortal girls at school, just to keep anyone from getting suspicious. He even kissed a few boys, just, well, because he was descended from the Greek gods and if they didn't care, why should anyone else? It was just a thing. Nico didn't owe anyone any explanations.

Nico was in the middle of one such assignation (with a punky hipster girl who looked a lot like Thalia, actually, but the family resemblance wasn't something Nico wanted to consider) – his shirt off, her bra off, two pairs of jeans open – on the couch when the front door opened.

"Gods, Nico, in the living room? We've talked about this!"

"Nothing you haven't seen," Nico said cheerfully, even as Not-Thalia squawked and yanked her shirt down.

"Um, but I haven't, and I'd rather not right now."

Nico shot upward and peered over the back of the couch, blinking black curls out of his eye. Somewhere over his shoulder, Not-Thalia slunk away to get her shoes and let herself shamefully out. Nico probably wouldn't talk to her at school on Monday.

It wasn't like he didn't like her or anything. He wasn't a total asshole.

It was just that the first person he ever fell in love with just walked through the door and he was kind of busy trying to stuff his dick back into his pants before they noticed it.

"What are you doing here?" Nico asked, a little breathlessly in spite of himself, as he pat his black curls into some semblance of a shape (meaning, 'roguishly into his eyes, because it had been looking frighteningly neat').

And Percy Jackson smiled at him, his green eyes twinkling a little like the reflection of starlight off soft waves. "Spring Break! Woo!" He pulled up the front of his t-shirt to flash Nico, then Annabeth, who rolled her eyes. "No? Okay, well. I just thought LA would have a bigger party vibe than New York. I can see now that I picked the wrong apartment for that."

"Not my fault," Nico said. He shrugged into his Bubonic Dance t-shirt. "I bring Spring Break spirit to this domicile daily. I make sure we're always teeming with half-naked underage co-eds."

Annabeth hit him in the back of the head, not quite as friendly as she tried to make it look for Percy's benefit. "Seaweed Brain, I blame you for this. You told everyone you'd look after the twerp, and what did you do? You transferred to NYU two weeks into the semester."

The complicated long-and-short of it was this: It was supposed to be Percy and Annabeth's apartment in Los Angeles, while they went to UCLA, but Percy wanted to be around for his mom's new baby so his half-sister would know him, and besides – even though he'd never admit it – he needed Camp Half-Blood even more than they'd ever needed him. So, Percy got homesick more quickly than anyone expected, except maybe Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and got on the red-eye home before they'd even finished unpacking.

So… Annabeth Chase had a two-bedroom apartment that she couldn't afford and exactly one friend in Los Angeles.

The son of the god of wealth.

Yeah, it was a little _useful_, but Nico got a nice Upperworld home and a normal high school and a really pretty roommate who sometimes baked cookies and always made him dinner, so no one complained about it.

The first few weeks had been a little awkward, just because Nico had this propensity for shadowtraveling to-and-from school and the Underworld and startling the naiads' bikinis out of Annabeth, and Annabeth had to reconfigure her entire living plan for the next few years from "living with boyfriend" to "living with younger cousin of boyfriend, who is really kind of awkward and sees dead people and has zero social skills whatsoever," which mainly meant that she needed, very quickly, to dispose of most of the… lounging clothes… she'd bought for sharing with Percy and replace them with baggy yoga pants and light t-shirts.

Eventually, Nico stopped barging silently through the shadows into her bedroom and Annabeth stopped having to remind him to _close the door, for gods' sakes, Nico!_ and they got comfortable with each other. Sometimes she would rest her head in his lap while they watched TV after dinner, or he'd put his feet annoyingly up on her thigh while he did his homework and pestered her for help with those seventy years of history that he didn't know.

Annabeth was the first person to figure out that Nico's favorite food was macaroni and cheese, the kind with the crumbled-up crackers on top and little cut-up hot dogs inside.

Nico discovered, when even Percy never had, that Annabeth's "tell" when she was stressed was that her right eyebrow curved over her eye like a coda, and nothing smoothed her out again like a shoulder-rub and someone braiding her hair for her, tickly and loose and soft. It was a skill he'd learned living with Bianca for almost a century, but neither of them ever had to talk about that.

They had a good understanding of that, too. The things not to be talked about.

Bianca.

Zoe.

Atlas.

Luke.

When Percy was gone. _When Percy was gone_, and they found him again, and he came to Los Angeles to be close to them and then _he left again_, just because he wanted to leave them. They didn't talk about that.

And really, Percy constantly talked to them. More, maybe, than he would have if he'd stayed at UCLA. So it wasn't like he'd abandoned them, or anything. But still. It was a connection that Annabeth and Nico shared deeply – missing Percy Jackson.

Nico thought he'd hidden his feelings so well, but Annabeth wasn't nicknamed Wise Girl for nothing. The younger boy had never brought home a blonde girl or a boy with green eyes.

She knew.

So when Percy went around the couch and pulled Nico into a lame cool-guy hug with the fists and the three abrasive pats on the back, and Nico turned his face into Percy's shoulder to breathe in that sea-air smell and Percy grinned into the top of Nico's head, smelling the sulfur and stardust of shadowtravel, Annabeth had to smile, a little forlorn.

She knew.

Ω

That night, Nico tried, really tried, not to listen.

But he was a sixteen-year-old boy, and he couldn't help it. He lay there in his bed, wide awake and wide eyed, as on the other side of his wall, Annabeth's bedsprings creaked. She giggled softly. Percy said something soft and low and dirty, and Nico couldn't quite hear the words, but it carried well enough that he shivered anyway. Annabeth's breath was shaky, and Percy made no sound, and Nico could almost feel – in the same way he could feel when someone had a broken bone or an ulcer or an irreparably broken heart – that Percy was on his knees at the edge of Annabeth's gray-blue bed, his dark head tucked between Annabeth's long, pale thighs.

He'd heard Annabeth before, a few times. Mostly when she thought he was out and she called Percy, late at night, and touched herself while he talked her off. She had no idea that Nico knew, because really, that just wasn't responsible roommating. But he'd listened then, too, and it was kind of one of the things Nico loved about her. She didn't make a big deal about it, like the girls at school, who tried to pretend like it was some gross thing that only perverts did. Annabeth didn't advertise it or anything, but it wasn't like she would have lied about it if he asked her. Nico appreciated honesty.

Nico had never heard Percy, though, and the sound of Percy's low words just barely ghosting over the hollow, flat space of the wall was what tipped Nico di Angelo over the edge that first night, fisting himself in one clammy hand beneath his pajama bottoms and spilling carelessly into his sheets.

After, he just rolled over, putting his back to the wall.

Ω

The next night, Nico shadowtraveled silently into the corner of Annabeth's room. They were mostly under the blankets; all he could see was the moonlight reflecting off the curve of Percy's spine and the long, muscled flat of his back as he moved over Annabeth, and one of Annabeth's familiar, lean legs hooked up over Percy's shoulder, her blonde hair fanned out over the dark pillowcase like trapped moonbeams. Nico hid, half his body literally in shadow and the other half in the world, one hand down his pants and the other half-hiding his eyes.

Don't ever tell them.

He felt bad about it afterwards.

Ω

Other than nighttime, things were pretty awesome for Nico while Percy was visiting. Really, other than Annabeth, Percy was his best friend – well, kind of his only friend, unless you counted his gothy fangirls at school, and frankly, Nico didn't – and Nico had missed the hell out of him.

Not to make a really bad pun, or anything.

So while Annabeth was running around with her internship and her part-time job and her responsible Annabeth-ness, Nico showed Percy around LA. It's a much better city when you're not there to die. They did a lot of Teenage Boy things, like pretending they know how to surf (only of course Percy actually did freakishly well, that jackwad) and practicing throwing a Frisbee around behind their backs on the beach, and Nico showed Percy how to order off the secret menu at In-N-Out and Percy looked at him like he's the best thing since ever.

It was how Nico had always looked at Percy, but he didn't think the older boy noticed.

Then Nico got really sunburned at the beach, because, well, Upperworld: not used to it/Underworlder skin, et cetera. He was so dark that he'd passed red into maroon and practically purple. He didn't want to make a big deal of it, but it hurt even to breathe, and he was miserable and Percy felt terrible. They went back to the apartment and Nico ran a tubful of cold water, and he hissed when he slid in because it felt like his skin would crackle right off.

He could hear Percy speaking softly outside the door, probably telling Annabeth what happened, and he felt like a dumb little kid and a pain in their necks and it was so dumb, but Nico felt embarrassed tears prickling behind his eyes because… they shouldn't have to take care of some stupid high schooler. This was supposed to be their apartment, anyway; Nico was just in the way. He knew that they didn't really think that, but he couldn't help feeling it was true. Nico closed his eyes and slouched uncomfortably in the cold water, feeling his skin crunch and burn. It just wasn't his day. It wasn't his _week_.

And then cold fingers of water were gently weaving their way up his spine, massaging his shoulders and combing like soft raindrops through his hair.

Nico opened his eyes in surprise and Percy was sitting there, at the edge of the bathtub, one hand dipped into the water near Nico's knee, telling the water what to do and where to go. His green eyes were deep and sad and he was staring at Nico like he's a revelation he's always known, a favorite song he'd forgotten, the secret language of horses and water.

And Nico's just sitting there going, _I'm naked. I'm_ naked.

"Hey," Percy saod sadly, and the water curved over Nico's chest, trickling in long drips down over his heart. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?" Nico asked, shifting a little. The water was gentle and felt good.

"I should have noticed you were burning," Percy sighed. "I should have been paying more attention. Now you've got sun poisoning and it's all my fault."

"Shut up, Hero," Nico mumbled, tipping his head back into the water as it soothes his scalp. "I'm not a baby. I should have said something. End of story."

There was a long stretch of no sound save for the soft swishing and clinking of the water as it moved around Nico, never warming too much, leeching the heat out of his skin.

"I know you're not a baby," Percy said finally.

Nico didn't say a word. It was a long time before anything new happened – just Nico and Percy and the water.

And then Annabeth burst into the room and Nico's sitting there going _I'm naked! I'm naked!_ again and Annabeth poured – oatmeal? – into his bathtub and Percy grumbled something about viscosity and Nico was just like, Annabeth, _what_ are you doing?

"Sally said oatmeal would help," Annabeth said stubbornly. "It soothes your skin."

"I feel stupid," Nico muttered, flushing even under the bright red-purple splotches of sun poisoning on his skin.

Annabeth crouched down beside Percy next to his bathtub and reached out like she was going to cup his face in her hand before remembering his burn and thinking better of it. "Don't feel stupid, Nico. It could happen to anyone."

Nico sighed. "Go away, Annabeth. I'm naked."

Annabeth laughed. "Nico, you're still really bad at locking doors. I've seen it all before. You said so yourself."

Nico couldn't help snorting. "Yes, but that's always when I'm gloriously virile and swoonworthy. This is just pathetic."

"You're never pathetic, Nico," Percy said softly. The water gently kneaded at the tension knots at the base of Nico's spine, and it felt unspeakably good.

"Says the invincible boy who's never been a geranium." It's not a great retort, but at that point, Nico was beyond caring.

Ω

Later that night, Nico sat on the couch in his underwear, too burned and miserable to wear much more clothing than was strictly necessary, watching reruns of _Futurama_ on Adult Swim and eating an enormous bowl of orange sherbet.

"I have a very sexy learning disorder," said Captain Zapp Brannigan on the screen. "What do I call that, Kif?"

Behind Nico, Percy replied: "Sexlexia."

Nico jumped and a dribble of orange sherbet landed in the crease of the sofa. He smudged it into the fabric. "Damn straight."

"It's true," Percy agreed. "Sexlexia is an acute condition." Then he looked at Nico, his eyes ranging over the dark glow under the skin of Nico's wiry arms and shoulders. "How you feeling?"

Nico shrugged. "Okay."

Annabeth came in and very gently pushed her fingers through Nico's hair, fluffing up the damp curls. He hummed and tilted his head back into the warmth of her hands.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Percy look up at Annabeth. He knew Percy well, and he knew Annabeth even better, but he never understood the silent words they spoke to each other with their eyes, the language of years of adventure and having no one but each other. The only person he'd ever known like that was Bianca, but – well, now was not the right time to think about that, and these were not the right people to compare to her.

"Nico," Annabeth said softly, still scratching gently behind his ears, "Do you want to sleep with us tonight?"

Silence, except for Kif and Leela in the background.

"In our bed," Percy clarified. "Not like – I mean, if you don't want."

Nico looked at Percy: green eyes, the color shifting into turquoise and blue and deep-sea dark; black hair with just the hint of a curl around his ears and the silver streak from bearing the weight of the world hidden under his messy bangs; just the slightest hint of a five o'clock shadow around his sharp jaw. The older boy chewed on his lip.

Nico tilted his head back and looked at Annabeth – beautiful, familiar, gray-eyed Annabeth. She smiled down at him like all they'd offered was to scoop him another bowl of orange sherbet, and the small hand that wasn't tangled in his hair went to smooth through Percy's.

"Yeah," Nico whispered. "Yeah, okay."

Ω

The sheets hurt his skin.

Percy and Annabeth were too _warm_; wherever they touched him, Nico felt like he was burning again. He whimpered pitifully and squirmed as he tried to find a way to sleep that didn't ache, and Percy and Annabeth looked helpless and sad and like this was just… very much not what they had planned.

"I'm sorry," Nico muttered, moving slow and awkward to get out of their bed and leave them in peace.

"Don't – " Percy said, touching Nico's shoulder and pulling away. He swooped up to press his lips against Nico's once, just for a moment, the only parts of them touching. "Just let us know how we can help."

Nico sat down and swallowed. "I don't know."

Annabeth leaned over Percy's lap and pressed her mouth to Nico's, too, a little more awkwardly, like she wasn't really sure how to fit her lips to anyone's but Percy's – not yet – and smiled at him, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear. "Well, the – it doesn't have to be tonight, if you don't feel well. Just so you know."

Nico blinked between Percy and Annabeth and carefully, he lay back down against her blue-gray sheets. "I think – well, I'd be uncomfortable anywhere. I might as well be uncomfortable with you guys."


	2. 002: Percy, Rachel, and Nico

**Author**: **aimmyarrowshigh**  
**Fandom**: _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_, Rick Riordan  
**Story Title**: "The Five Times Someone Felt Left Out (And How They Were All Rectified with Kisses)"  
**Character/Relationships**: Percy/Annabeth/Nico, Percy/Nico/Rachel, Nico/Rachel/Annabeth, Rachel/Annabeth/Percy, Percy/Nico/Annabeth/Rachel  
**Rating**: M  
**Warnings**: Some mild sexual content.  
**Wordcount**: 3,150/~15,000... this one ran away from me.  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own anything. All characters, settings, and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.

**The Five Times Someone Felt Left Out (And How They Were All Rectified with Kisses)**

**002. Percy/Nico/Rachel**

Everything was different after that week, but… nothing was different. Nico still lived with Annabeth and loved her, quietly, and she baked him cookies and made him macaroni and cheese with crumbled crackers on top and little cut-up hot dogs. His skin faded back into its deathly pallor; do not pass tan, do not collect 200 drachmas.

Percy still left, at the end of ten days, and went back to NYU.

But now, Nico shied away from the advances of his gothy fangirls (and boys) the way mortals and normal demigods shied away from graveyards.

Now, Annabeth dug some of the little cheeky shorts and tank tops out of the boxes in her closet, and wore them when the Los Angeles springtime got too hot for her New York sensibilities.

Now, sometimes, it was Nico who got a phone call from Percy in the middle of the night, low, dirty words to help his hands along.

For the first time since he lived in a crappy dormitory at a bullshit military school, Nico felt –

Well, it'd be cliché to say that it was the first time he felt loved. Maybe 'wanted' is more appropriate, although that casts Bianca in a bit of an incestuous light.

Nico felt _happy_. Blissful, even. Completely content.

So it was sort of a shock when he shadowtraveled into Percy's dorm at NYU one Friday night when Annabeth would be gone for the weekend on some stupid architecture field trip – really, an architecture field trip? Bo-ring – and Percy was curled up on the end of the bed, Rachel Elizabeth Dare's freckled legs over his shoulders and his face buried beneath her paint-spattered skirt.

"What the fuck?" Nico cried – dangerously close to shrieking, because, well, he's Nico di Angelo and some things never really change. "Percy, what the –how did – I didn't – who did – Annabeth – Rachel – how did – Apollo – _what_?"

"Nico – " Rachel started, her breath stuttering as –

"Percy, stop that right now!" Nico yelled, stomping his foot and not even feeling silly about it, because _Percy needed to stop that right now, why wasn't he stopping this?_. "I'm calling Annabeth! And she's supposed to be looking at like – like buttresses right now! You know how much she loves buttresses! She will be so angry!"

Percy finally lifted his head and sighed. "She'll be more angry about you interrupting her buttress field trip than about me and Rachel?"

"Yes!" Nico said triumphantly. "I mean, no!"

"You were right the first time," Percy said dryly, blinking up at Nico from where his head rested on Rachel's knee. "Don't interrupt her field trip, she'll kill you."

"She'll kill you!" Nico argued. "You're cheating on the only person who knows where your Achilles spot is! Your head really is full of kelp."

Percy met Nico's eyes. "Was she cheating on me this morning?"

Nico sort of squeaked. And sort of spluttered. And kind of blushed. Not really quite any of those, but sort of something in the middle. It wasn't an attractive moment for Nico di Angelo.

"That's – that's different," Nico said. "It's – you aren't there anymore. _You_ left _us_. And that's – it's not my – " Nico shook his head and black curls fell into his eyes. "I thought we were – it's different."

"Nico," Rachel said gently, reaching for him. Nico shrank back. "Nico – it – Annabeth knows."

"No way," Nico said, shaking his head. His black eyes burned and Rachel felt the fear rising in her. "You have – you have _no idea_ how much Annabeth loves Percy, Rachel Elizabeth Dare. You have _no idea_."

And he melted into the shadows.

Annabeth was showering off a long day of architectural walking tours when Nico stepped out of the shadows in her hotel room. He sat on the little counter and leaned back against the cool mirror, watching her long, familiar form through the whorled, trying-too-hard hotel glass.

"Rachel called me," Annabeth said into the spray as she lathers her blonde hair. It's finally long again. Nico and Percy both like the way it looks draped across their hips. She didn't need to raise her voice over the pound of the water to be heard.

Nico didn't say anything. He just knocked his heels against the cabinetry.

"It was my idea," Annabeth said, turning around to rinse the bubbles out of her hair. "After you and he – well, you and I, we're out here. And Percy's alone out there, and so is Rachel, and I was just like… well. We all like Rachel."

"I don't like Rachel," Nico argued, still sitting stubbornly on the counter.

"Since when?"

"Since everyone decided not to tell me about her," Nico said, still knocking his heels against the cabinetry. One foot fell in and out of shadow; a divine magic trick. "I thought it was you and me and Percy and it was like – I don't know."

Annabeth stuck her head out of the glass doors and stared at him with that steely gray glint that made him cower whenever he'd done something wrong. "We fucking love you, Nico di Angelo, you know that."

"Then why does he need her?"

Annabeth looked tired. "Why did I need you?"

Nico finally stopped knocking. "Are you mad at me?"

Annabeth stepped back into the water. "No. But I want you to spend tonight with Percy and Rachel."

Nico slid down from the counter and sidled over to the shower doors. "But I could spend it with you."

Annabeth smirked. "The water's already getting cold, kid. Percy's not here, remember?"

"There's a bed," Nico said, pulling his t-shirt off and dropping it into a pile on the floor. "There's the floor. There's a lovely counter, it supports my weight."

Annabeth laughed and shoved at his chest. "I'm sure it does, skeleton boy. But I want you to spend tonight with Percy and Rachel. They're worried about you."

"Rachel has no reason to be worried about me," Nico disagreed, unbuttoning the fly of his jeans. "I barely know her. And I'd rather not get zapped to death by Apollo, thanks very much."

"You won't," Annabeth said, sighing as Nico stepped into the shower behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Compared to Percy, his skin was always so cold. It took a while to get used to, but she liked it now; her boys, one warm sunshine and water and one cold gold and earth. The cradle of his hipbones pressed into her back. They were about the same height now; he must have hit a growth spurt in the last few weeks that had slipped right past her. "They have a system."

"They have a system," Nico repeated dryly. "The Virgin Oracle of Delphi has a system for having sex – wait, no, not even just sex, is it? – _threesomes_, without getting everyone blown up by the sun god. Okay. That's logical."

Annabeth shrugged and Nico kissed her shoulder. "I never said it was logical. But Apollo likes Rachel. He just wants her to be happy." She twisted in Nico's arms and kissed the underside of his jaw, just where the stubble was starting to come in. It was another new feature, and Nico was rather proud of it.

All at once it struck Annabeth that Nico seemed to be growing up in fast forward ever since she and Percy had invited him into bed; he was getting taller and filling out and becoming a man and she wonders, idly, if somehow they'd given his time-frozen body some sort of cue to jumpstart. "Don't you want everyone to be happy?"

Nico made a grumbling sound. "Oh, don't even try it. I'm the son of Hades. You're lucky if I want people to be mildly unfrightened."

Ω

Nico's hair was still wet when he reappeared in Percy's dorm room, and he still hadn't shaved off the dark shadow under his jaw. He stared at the bed, where Percy sat with his head in his hands and Rachel knelt beside him, rubbing his back. _At least everyone's clothing was on this time._

"I already know Annabeth called you and said I was coming back," Nico said. "So you don't have to pretend to be all sad."

Percy looked up. His brow knit over his dark, raging-sea eyes and Nico felt a little bit bad for thinking Percy was just pretending. But only a little bit. "She said you think I don't care about you guys anymore."

Nico's shoulders sagged. "I didn't say that. Exactly."

Percy was standing toe-to-toe with him, his warm, callused hands cupping Nico's prickly jaw hard. He pressed his forehead into Nico's as though he was trying to form an empathy link. "Don't _ever_ think that."

Nico's hands settled timidly on Percy's hips. He liked the muscle there, that band that flexed whenever Percy moved. His voice came out so small that he wasn't sure Percy would hear him, even only inches away. "Is this so that you can try to make Rachel be with me when you and Annabeth want to just be together again?"

The kiss that Percy seared into Nico's lips almost hurt in its sudden, blistering intensity. Nico wondered if Percy could taste Annabeth on his mouth. He wound his fingers into Percy's belt loops and pulled him closer, but he never closed his eyes – behind them, still on Percy's bed, sat redheaded Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Staring at them. Biting her lip.

"_No_," Percy said fiercely into Nico's mouth. Then he nipped at Nico's lower lip and grinned. "You're stuck with me. No more half-naked underage coeds for you, unfortunately."

Nico's cheeks flushed. "I know I'm supposed to be an asshat right now. But I don't really want to." On the bed, Rachel smiled serenely at them, and Nico wondered just how much foresight the Oracle of Delphi really had.

Percy's green eyes sparked. "That's a first!"

Rachel's smile grew into a grin.

"Fuck off." Nico shoved at Percy's hips, then caught him and pulled him back before a second had even passed. Their lips met again and then Nico pulled back and raised an eyebrow. "Now wait… this isn't some kind of crazy Athena test where if I believe you guys and sleep with Rachel, Annabeth and Apollo get to kill me, right?"

Rachel Elizabeth Dare threw her head back and laughed and unfolded from Percy's bed like a cat. She laid one hand on Nico's skinny side and slid the other hand into Percy's back pocket, where she linked her pinky with Nico's. "I promise, Apollo is fine. We have… a deal, I guess."

"Yeah," Nico said, pulling back. "Annabeth mentioned that. I don't get it."

Rachel shrugged. "As long as nothing – " she whistled and made an unexpectedly rude gesture with two circled fingers and two straight knuckles – "then it's fine."

"That's not a deal, that's a condition," Nico pointed out, ever the son of Hades, who was kind of the original master of deals that come back to bite you in the ass. Just ask Persephone. Or most people Hades had ever met. "What does Apollo get out of it?"

Really, he asked because he was thinking, _I ain't doing nothing if Apollo gets to watch._

Rachel smirked. "Apollo gets his prophecies if I get you guys."

"You mean if you get Percy," Nico corrected her.

"No," Rachel said, putting her hands on him again. "If I get Percy… and Annabeth… and _you_."

Ω

The first time that Nico was with Percy and Annabeth, he was on such a physical overload that he didn't really have time to pay attention to his other four senses. All he really noticed was the way Percy's skin was hotter, almost feverish and bright, in a little square knot at the base of his spine, and how when he brushed his fingers over it, all of Percy _shuddered_. He noticed how soft Annabeth's skin was and how even the calluses on her hands seemed to be perfectly placed to do everything _right_ and when she ran her palms over the tops of his thighs, they fell open without his permission.

He had felt Percy's tongue fill his mouth the same moment that Annabeth slid down over him and he just remembers thinking, _gods, they do _everything_ together and they don't even realize it._

And of course he felt the weight of Percy against his tongue, and the hugeness of Percy's hands where they cupped his jaw and just barely brushed over his throat, and the dark brushing of Percy's nighttime stubble against his skin when he kissed him after. He felt all of that.

But now, when it was Percy and Rachel, Nico saw everything.

He watched his fingers shake as he slid open buttons on her blouse, watched as her skin came into view, every inch more freckled than the last.

He saw the thin line of shine that Percy's tongue left behind on her skin as he traced a constellation – Pegasus, maybe, or Perseus because he got a little cocky like that when he was in bed – out of the freckles that dotted over her stomach. Nico opened his jeans at that and Percy grinned, luscious and dark and completely unfair, before leaning over to mouth at him a little – too shallow and light to really _be_ anything, but enough that Nico groaned and twined his fingers hard through Percy's dark hair.

Rachel touched his jaw and turned him to her, and that was the first time Nico kissed Rachel Elizabeth Dare. He didn't close his eyes. Her eyelashes were so long they almost brushed her apple-cheeks and so fair that they shimmered.

"What do you want?" Percy murmured to Rachel, peeling her bright-colored bra down from her arms. Nico pulled his own shirt off hastily at their side, not wanting to miss anything, and slipped his hands under Percy's thin undershirt, one hand sliding around to feel the shifting muscles of Percy's stomach and the the other slipping over the warm, bright, Vulnerable spot on his back.

Percy shuddered and leaked a dark wet spot through the front of his underwear and dropped his head back to Nico's shoulder, holding his mouth for a kiss, as Rachel helped Nico pull off Percy's shirt.

"I want to see you two," Rachel slid back, her words all blending together in Nico's ears. "And I want you to finish what you started earlier."

And then somehow her underwear and her little skirt were gone and Nico wasn't sure how, but they're all naked, and he was behind Percy – his favorite place lately, not gonna lie – and Percy's muscles are shifting in this very appealing way as he pressed slow kisses all down Rachel Elizabeth Dare's freckled body.

Nico really liked the way her red hair looked floating over Percy's sea green pillowcase. It was just as nice as Annabeth's pale gold on his own black bedding back home – it was just different.

They had done this with Annabeth, too. But with Annabeth, at least that first time, Percy had been flat on his back beneath Nico with his legs all tucked up around Nico's skinny ribs and Annabeth had hovered over Percy's mouth, clutching the bedposts, and all Nico could see – at least that time – was the shifting muscles of her back.

But this –

Ω

Percy, of course, fell asleep pretty much immediately after. He sort of squished Rachel Elizabeth Dare a little bit, and she laughed and reached out for Nico, and Nico pulled Percy's heavy limbs up so she could crawl out from beneath him, naked and freckled and radiant in the light between shadows.

Rachel's hair tickled Nico's nose as she settled down beside him, a little white buffer between his side and Percy's. She ran her hand down his chest and Nico noticed, somehow for the first time, that she'd drawn a swirling seascape over her hand and wrist and up her arm to her elbow, and there was Percy, drawn tall and majestic over her blue veins.

"Are you in love with him?" Nico asked her under his breath – even though he could have yelled without waking Percy, at least for the next few hours. He tucked Rachel's hair back behind her ear anyway.

"Not yet." Rachel smiled at him. Then she shifted and showed him her other arm.

This drawing was simpler – drawn half with her wrong hand and half by Percy, whose skill with a pen (when it wasn't a pen that was also a sword) – but it was still clear. Nico, grinning and glowing with hellfire, brandishing his Stygian blade and laying siege against –

"Are those ninjas? And the Kraken from _Pirates of the Caribbean_?"

Rachel grinned. "Percy's idea." She kissed his sharp collarbone. "He loves you."

Nico's brow furrowed and he nodded. "And he loves Annabeth."

Rachel slung her leg up over Nico's waist and then, just before Percy's hand came up to pull her back against him again in his sleep, before he started drooling in Rachel Elizabeth Dare's red hair, Nico saw it: the tiny, cramped, backwards letters in Percy's handwriting on Rachel's hip. **he'll loэv ʎou ** She kissed him.

Nico felt his cheeks warm and he pressed his lips together.

Ω

Before dawn, Nico melted into the shadows on Percy's dorm room bed and reappeared back in California, in the corners of Annabeth's hotel room in her stupid buttress-y hotel on her buttress field trip. It was still nighttime in California and the room was darker, and her smooth, tan shoulder seemed to radiate light. It was different from the moonglow of Rachel's skin in New York. Not better or worse, just different. Nico slipped into her bed behind her and that tan skin prickled with goosebumps. Nico touched them wonderingly. Nothing made sense.

He lie awake until the room was mostly sun, and Annabeth's phone made a really annoying alarm noise that caused Nico to throw it across the room.

In the morning, Annabeth stretched and rolled over and Nico spit blonde hair out of his eyes. "So?"

Nico shrugged. "It's different than you."

Annabeth's gray eyes narrowed. "You loved it. You had the time of your wormy little life."

Nico's slow grin melted across his face like butter on pancakes (which he really hoped Annabeth would buy for him, incidentally). "It was pretty okay. I guess."

Annabeth elbowed him hard in the spleen as she got out of bed. "Well, I guess I'll keep you around when they come to visit after Finals, then. But if you'd rather go hang out with your dad since Persephone will be gone, I under– "

Nico tackled her around the knees and they laughed and breathed into each other's mouths on the nubbly hotel floor until they had long since missed the window for the complimentary continental breakfast, and Annabeth bought Nico some pancakes down the street just to shut him up.


End file.
